Current balance of starships in exo waves?

[keith.lamothe]

On the munitions boosting thing, I don't see why starships should have a cap that the fleet ships don't, particularly considering that the fleet ships generally have a substantially higher base dps and bonus dps.

You may notice it more when it's starships getting the boost, but I assure you that 100 mkIV bombers get a lot scarier when they have a 2.3x boost or whatever.

Diazo, on the numbers, remember that the starships are now balanced basically as "half-caps": they cost less K to get, but a cap of them is roughly speaking only half as effective as a cap of comparable fleet ships.  In practice they're a little buffer than that, but a cap of mkI Zenith Starships (which is well, 1) vs a cap of mkI MLRS or whatever is going to come out lacking on the DPS comparison.  At least, iirc.

In other words I'd think starships would be closer to 96/cap than 192/cap, in their strength.

Of course, maybe it isn't that way

One thing to remember is that, while DPS and health comparisons are useful here, the underlying question when figuring out "how many fighters should this equal" is "what's the largest number of fighters/bombers/etc I'd rather face than this one big unit?".  Sometimes health and dps doesn't tell that story due to hull bonuses, firing mechanics, etc.

[thefreeaccount]

Does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with "regular difficulty" (8/9) spire+golem+champion exowaves when your homeworld has a large number of connections? Before the starship patch, I could defend a 5~7 spoke connection homeworld using "forcefield pinch"/"forcefield pincer" traffic shaping and AoE. However, the starship change has introduced a larger number of "bouncy" enemy Spire forcefields, which seems to make the AI pathing when "pushing" against my forcefield wall somewhat random. Also, the increased durability of starships has prevented me from beaming them down before they finally "push through" and break any number of forcefields.

Am I just supposed to keep the Spire Ram equivalent of an exowave starship HP pool on hand. assuming that I can't defend both sides of every wormhole? I realize that these exowaves occur late into the game, so if that's just "brutal punishment" for taking too long, it's understandable.

Also, has anyone noticed an increased probability of exowave forces ending up in random "back woods" systems far from your homeworld?

[Faulty Logic]

Does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with "regular difficulty" (8/9) spire+golem+champion [champs don't cause exos...] exowaves when your homeworld has a large number of connections?

Option 1: buy a black hole machine from the zenith trader (if enabled).
Option 2: more forcefields. Hardened are almost as good as normal.
Option 3: grav turrets mkIII all over your home system.
Option 4: have caps of penetrators/rams/shieldbearers/implosion artilleries on hand.
Option 5: if you don't already have riotsII, purchase them, for the mobile wormhole block and the tazing.
Option 6: Emp minefields.
Option 7: Use emp warheads on some exo groups, so you fight them sequentially instead of simultaneously.
Option 8: Artillery or Hive golems.
Option 9: Modular forts blockade wormholes pretty well, especially with shields III.

It really depends on your specific situation, though.

Welcome to the forums.

[keith.lamothe]

Option 10: See sig?

And yes, welcome to the forums

[Diazo]

One thing to remember is that, while DPS and health comparisons are useful here, the underlying question when figuring out "how many fighters should this equal" is "what's the largest number of fighters/bombers/etc I'd rather face than this one big unit?".  Sometimes health and dps doesn't tell that story due to hull bonuses, firing mechanics, etc.

I know any calculation I can come up with is going to be off and that every ship will need adjustments after the calculation is done.

I'm trying to establish a baseline so that if the "baseline calc" says X and a person comes along going "this ship should be 10 times X", they'd better have a really good case backing them up as opposed to someone who goes "this ship should be 1.2 times X", they are probably in the ballpark and we can look at setting that ship's value to 1.2 times X.

If you don't have that baseline, you are going to have every person say that the ships RelativeStrength should be a different value and have no way of determining who's actually the closest to being correct and where to start the debate on that ship.

(This is really opinion and does not have a 'correct' answer, but we are trying to do the best we can here.)

Having said that, I'm still struggling to come up with some sort of baseline to use.

D.

[Jonz0rz]

Let's see what happens if I expand on my previous idea (averaging hp and dps compared to a fighter).

I noticed that the table on page 1 has fighter stats being listed as 1/2 that of a mark 1 fighter. So that leaves me scratching my head a bit as to how accurate things will be if I use those numbers. So I'll just wing it and do my best using in-game stats.

My baseline is the fighter. Using In-Game stats, I calculate them as having 165,000 health and 1020 dps.

(condensed version with just strength ratings further down)

Flagship:
10,000,000 hp
30,000 dps
60 hp rating
29 dps rating
44 strength

Spire Starship:
24,000,000 hp
360,000 dps
145 hp rating
352 dps rating
248 strength

Zenith Starship:
36,000,000 hp
80,000 dps
218 hp rating
78 dps rating
148 strength

Plasma Siege:
10,000,000 hp
90,000 dps
60 hp rating
132 dps rating
96 strength

Heavy Bomber:
18,000,000 hp
150,000 dps
109 hp rating
147 dps rating
128 strength

Spirecraft Siege Tower:
4,000,000 hp
66,666 dps
24 hp rating
65 dps rating
45 strength

Spirecraft Implosion Artillery:
1,000,000 hp
50002 dps
6 hp rating
49 dps rating
27 strength

AI Spirecraft Shield Bearer:
14,000,000 hp
14,000 dps
84 hp rating
13 dps rating
48 strength

AI Regenerator Golem:
200,000,000 hp
300,000 dps
1212 hp rating
294 dps rating
753 strength

AI Artillery Golem:
50,000,000 hp
12,500,000 dps
303 hp rating
12254 dps rating
6278 strength

AI Black Widow Golem:
100,000,000 hp
1,750,000 dps
606 hp rating
1715 dps rating
1160 strength

AI Armored Golem:
250,000,000 hp
2,500,000 dps
1515 hp rating
2450 dps rating
1982 strength

Hunter Killer:
100,000,000 hp
4,333,333 dps
606 hp rating
4248 dps rating
2427 strength

Mothership:
800,000,000 hp
8,000,000 dps
4848 hp rating
7843 dps rating
6345 strength

Condensed Version:
Fighter: 1 Strength
Flagship: 44 Strength
Spire Starship: 248 Strength
Zenith Starship: 148 Strength
Plasma Siege Starship: 96 Strength
Heavy Bomber Starship: 128 Strength
Spirecraft Siege Tower: 45 Strength
Spirecraft Implosion Artillery: 27 Strength
AI Spirecraft Shield Bearer: 48 Strength
AI Regenerator Golem: 753 Strength
AI Artillery Golem: 6278 Strength
AI Black Widow Golem: 1160 Strength
AI Armored Golem: 1982 Strength
Hunter Killer: 2427 Strength
Mothership: 6345 Strength

Note:
- All ships are Mark I.
- Flagship doesn't take the attack boost into account.
- Spire Starship assumes a 3 second reload (2 seconds firing, followed by 1 second of reloading).
- Plasma Siege assumes single target damage.
- AI Spirecraft Shield Bearer and all Golem stats were taken from a new game vs a Crafty Spire and Golemite AI on diff 10 with full map reveal. The golem health values I came up with appear to be half of what's listed by keith on page 1, so they may need to be recalculated.
- Spirecraft Implosion Artillery assumes it will be hitting a 20,000,000 health target (basic FF health)
- H/K stats are from Toranth's post (which I assume are 100% accurate from in game).
- I didn't have in-game stats for the mothership, so I used what was on the list on page 1, which includes damage modifiers (if it has any). All other ships are base DPS.
- I truncated numbers, so they may be off a point or two
- For one or two of them, I multiplied out a previous one with a lower multiple of the same number, which may cause slightly more deviation, but not much, maybe 4-5 points at most

Things appear to be pretty decent so far, with only the artillery golem really sticking out. And that's just sticking out because it's not taking the massive overkill it causes into account, it doesn't really have that much dps unless it's attacking a Mk. III-IV Zenith SS, or a Golem, or if something from Fallen Spire has over 100m hp, and a couple more from Zenith Traders. But, then again, I've never faced one under AI control, maybe they really ARE that nasty  >D.

[TechSY730]

@Jonz0rz

The half stats thing is due to global ship cap scaling. The internal stats are for the high cap scale, but the default stats for a new game is the normal cap scale, which has half the ship cap but double stats on each individual ship. (And yes, that can mess around with balance a bit, though from high to normal isn't a bad skew, but you can start to notice it on some of the lower cap stettings)



Speaking of which, the turret cap multiple of 8 thing was never finished, just a heads up

[keith.lamothe]

@JonzOrz:

Thanks for taking a stab at it

Given the various sources you're pulling from you may be getting a bit of apples-and-oranges due to different sources using different cap scales and/or different combat style settings (Epic has much lower dps for things than Normal).  If you want numbers from in-game you can use F1 to change the planetary summary (while in planet view) to display all ships of a given mark and just mouseover them for stats.  Alternatively you can use the export-balance-stats button on the Reference tab of the Stats screen to get the game to dump a spreadsheet of the units the reference tab is currently working with (just turn all the filters off before you export to get everything); the spreadsheet will be in the RuntimeData directory as a csv file (subsquent dumps get appended to the end, so don't assume the top chunk is the most recent one).

Also, are the DPS numbers for things like flagships their base dps, or their dps vs units they have a bonus against?  If it's just the non-bonus dps then yea, they're gonna stink compared to a spire or heavy bomber starship, etc which don't have bonuses at all.

[Jonz0rz]

@Tech and keith

Thanks a bunch. I'll keep that in mind if/when I make my next go at it.

Also, are the DPS numbers for things like flagships their base dps, or their dps vs units they have a bonus against?

I used base damages only, and here's why...

If it's just the non-bonus dps then yea, they're gonna stink compared to a spire or heavy bomber starship, etc which don't have bonuses at all.

If you assume it gets the damage bonus all the time, it will stink when it runs into something it doesn't get a bonus against. Heavy bomber and spire ships kill everything at the same rate regardless.

I suppose I could do an average damage bonus, and take all armor types into account. It would certainly be more accurate, but I'd need to look up more stuff.

Some questions:
- Does the cap level I'm calculating at matter? Or am I good as long as I pull everything from the same level?
- What's the max # of units that can be buffed by a single flagship? (I've zoomed in on large groups and seen only some of the nearby ships boosted, even with flagships right next to them)
- Does armor need to be taken into account?
- How does armor work, exactly?

[ZaneWolfe]

Some questions:
- Does the cap level I'm calculating at matter? Or am I good as long as I pull everything from the same level?
- What's the max # of units that can be buffed by a single flagship? (I've zoomed in on large groups and seen only some of the nearby ships boosted, even with flagships right next to them)
- Does armor need to be taken into account?
- How does armor work, exactly?

I get to pretend I know what I am talking about. YAY.

1} As long as ALL the numbers were taken from the same cap level, probably not. Just remember that the cap size of the game (whether Very High or Very Low) affects EVERYTHING. HP, Damage, even armor and armor pen. (Though armor and pen might be hidden and appear to be the same. Cant remember right now.)

2} I have no idea, ask someone else. I do know that it's ironically less than even a Booster type fleetship of the same mark. Can we get that adjusted? I would think since there are so much fewer Flagships than Boosters (I think even at Very Low Caps a full set of Flagships MKI-MKV would be out numbered by just a full cap of MKI Boosters) that the Flagships would be allowed to boost more units overall since you cant cover as much area with them

3} No, because it varies from unit to unit, and from mark to mark. When factoring DPS, you only need to factor its damage, fire rate, and if you desire, bonuses. This is because its easy to figure out how much armor and pen will affect it, because...

4} Armor is a flat reduction. An attack doing 1000 damage against a target with 100 armor will do 900 damage. Penetration is also a flat factor. That same attack vs Armor 500, if the unit had 500 or more armor pen, will do its full 1000 damage. Penetration above the armor is ignored, no matter how much greater it is. The only part where it gets tricky is the 80% rule. No attack can be reduced by more than 80%, no matter how much more armor the target has. So, that same 1000 damage shot against a target with 1000 or more armor will always do at least 200 damage. As you can imagine, this makes high amounts of armor better against things that shoot a lot of little shots, as the armor factors in per shot, while less effective against something that just shoots one big shot. The other part, while not tricky, is something I do not know. Which factors first, Armor or Hull Bonus?

[keith.lamothe]

If it's just the non-bonus dps then yea, they're gonna stink compared to a spire or heavy bomber starship, etc which don't have bonuses at all.

If you assume it gets the damage bonus all the time, it will stink when it runs into something it doesn't get a bonus against. Heavy bomber and spire ships kill everything at the same rate regardless.

But that's not true.  Spire dps varies widely based on the precise situation.  If relative movement is bad it does hardly any damage

For the Heavy Bomber, yea, that's more of a hits-anything-equally hard, but it's only recently regained the ability to target fleet ships.

[Faulty Logic]

A few general exo observations:

In big battles, there is little difference between many small units and one big unit. In fact, I usually prefer to see one big unit.
Exos are gentle at high difficulty.
The H/K + SC shieldbearer build is by far the hardest.
They got significantly nastier with the starship changes.
Raid-led groups are terrifying.
Golems are the worst deal for the AI.

[Hearteater]

An Armored Golem in the first Exo can be very tough to deal with though.  After that, I agree.

[keith.lamothe]

Here are two exo logs Cinth sent in recently, and I think they're fairly helpful in understanding the impact of the current cost structure for Exos.  Specifically that actual threat increases a lot more slowly in the upper reaches of budget size.

This is because the first one is from an exo that chose to dump all its points into a single battlegroup, thus compressing more points into fewer ships (the pop-cap on these is per-battlegroup, not for the whole thing), and the second chose to deploy as five separate battlegroups (against potentially 5 separate targets, perhaps).

Log 1:

3/28/2013 3:36:52 PM (6.015)
-----------------------------------
Populating EventAttackArmada, 1250208 total points; Game Time: 5:36:22

3/28/2013 3:36:52 PM (6.015)
-----------------------------------
BattleGroup of 1250208 Points

FGType	SubTier	Tier	CostEach	Count	TotalCost	ReferenceOnly_StrengthEach	ReferenceOnly_TotalStrength	ExoCostToRelativeStrengthRatio
Fighter	Heavy	Drone	24	4	96	8	32	0.75
MissileShip	Light	Cutter	32	2	64	8	16	2.00
FighterII	Light	Cutter	32	2	64	16	32	1.00
MissileShipII	Medium	Cutter	48	1	48	16	16	3.00
MLRS	Medium	Cutter	48	1	48	10.11	10.11	4.75
Bomber	Medium	Cutter	48	2	96	8	16	3.00
SpireGravityRipper	Heavy	Cutter	64	2	128	16	32	2.00
Cruiser	Heavy	Cutter	64	1	64	24	24	2.67
MLRSII	Heavy	Cutter	64	1	64	20.21	20.21	3.17
SpireGravityRipperII	Light	Corvette	128	2	256	32	64	2.00
CruiserIV	Light	Corvette	128	1	128	32	32	4.00
BomberIII	Light	Corvette	128	1	128	24	24	5.33
BomberIV	Medium	Corvette	192	1	192	32	32	6.00
SpireGravityRipperIII	Medium	Corvette	192	2	384	48	96	2.00
CoreBattleCruiser	Medium	Corvette	192	1	192	40	40	4.80
SpireGravityRipperIV	Heavy	Corvette	256	1	256	64	64	4.00
CoreMLRS	Heavy	Corvette	256	2	512	50.53	101.05	2.53
CoreBomber	Heavy	Corvette	256	1	256	40	40	6.40
CoreSpireGravityRipper	Light	Frigate	64	7	448	80	560	0.11
AIGuardianArtillery	Medium	Frigate	96	1	96	48	48	2.00
AIGuardianSpider	Medium	Frigate	96	1	96	48	48	2.00
AIGuardianLaser	Medium	Frigate	96	1	96	48	48	2.00
AIGuardianBeam	Medium	Frigate	96	1	96	48	48	2.00
AIGuardianArtilleryII	Heavy	Frigate	128	6	768	96	576	0.22
AIGuardianFlakII	Heavy	Frigate	128	2	256	96	192	0.67
AIGuardianRaiderII	Heavy	Frigate	128	2	256	96	192	0.67
LightStarship	Heavy	Frigate	128	2	256	96	192	0.67
AIGuardianLaserII	Heavy	Frigate	128	2	256	96	192	0.67
AIGuardianTractorII	Heavy	Frigate	128	2	256	96	192	0.67
AIGuardianBeamII	Heavy	Frigate	128	2	256	96	192	0.67
AIGuardianFlakIII	Light	Destroyer	256	1	256	144	144	1.78
AIGuardianTractorIII	Light	Destroyer	256	1	256	144	144	1.78
AIGuardianBeamIII	Light	Destroyer	256	1	256	144	144	1.78
AIGuardianLaserIII	Light	Destroyer	256	1	256	144	144	1.78
AIGuardianRaiderIII	Light	Destroyer	256	1	256	144	144	1.78
AIGuardianSniperIII	Light	Destroyer	256	1	256	144	144	1.78
AIGuardianSpiderV	Heavy	Destroyer	512	4	2048	240	960	0.53
ZenithStarshipI	Heavy	Destroyer	512	4	2048	192	768	0.67
FlagshipIV	Heavy	Destroyer	512	2	1024	384	768	0.67
AIGuardianLightningV	Heavy	Destroyer	512	2	1024	240	480	1.07
BomberStarshipII	Heavy	Destroyer	512	2	1024	192	384	1.33
RiotControlStarshipII	Heavy	Destroyer	512	2	1024	96	192	2.67
AIRaidStarshipIII	Light	Cruiser	1024	3	3072	192	576	1.78
ZenithStarshipII	Light	Cruiser	1024	1	1024	384	384	2.67
FlagshipV	Light	Cruiser	1024	3	3072	480	1440	0.71
BomberStarshipIII	Light	Cruiser	1024	1	1024	288	288	3.56
SpireStarshipII	Light	Cruiser	1024	1	1024	384	384	2.67
ZenithStarshipIV	Heavy	Cruiser	2048	4	8192	768	3072	0.67
SpirecraftSiegeTowerII	Heavy	Cruiser	2048	6	12288	64	384	5.33
AIRaidStarshipV	Heavy	Cruiser	2048	2	4096	320	640	3.20
SpirecraftImplosionII	Heavy	Cruiser	2048	2	4096	64	128	16.00
AISpirecraftShieldBearerII	Heavy	Cruiser	2048	2	4096	48	96	21.33
SpireStarshipV	Light	Battleship	4096	5	20480	960	4800	0.85
AISpirecraftShieldBearerIII	Light	Battleship	4096	1	4096	96	96	42.67
SpirecraftImplosionIII	Light	Battleship	4096	2	8192	144	288	14.22
SpirecraftSiegeTowerIII	Light	Battleship	4096	1	4096	144	144	28.44
AISpirecraftShieldBearerIV	Medium	Battleship	6144	6	36864	192	1152	5.33
SpirecraftImplosionIV	Medium	Battleship	6144	1	6144	384	384	16.00
SpirecraftSiegeTowerIV	Medium	Battleship	6144	5	30720	384	1920	3.20
SpirecraftImplosionV	Heavy	Battleship	8192	8	65536	960	7680	1.07
SpirecraftSiegeTowerV	Heavy	Battleship	8192	6	49152	960	5760	1.42
AISpirecraftShieldBearerV	Heavy	Battleship	8192	8	65536	480	3840	2.13
RegeneratorGolemAIAdvanced	Light	Dreadnought	16384	4	65536	2970	11880	1.38
ArmoredGolemAIAdvanced	Light	Dreadnought	16384	4	65536	2970	11880	1.38
BlackWidowGolemAIAdvanced	Light	Dreadnought	16384	3	49152	2970	8910	1.84
ArtilleryGolemAIAdvanced	Light	Dreadnought	16384	2	32768	2970	5940	2.76
AIHunterKiller	Heavy	Dreadnought	32768	7	229376	990	6930	4.73
AIHunterKillerII	Light	Mauler	65536	3	196608	3960	11880	5.52
AIHunterKillerV	Light	Planetoid	262144	1	262144	24750	24750	10.59

Battlegroup actual budget spent: 1249760 on 171 ships (for reference that is 52916.84 strength).

Log 2:

3/28/2013 7:21:23 PM (6.015)
-----------------------------------
Populating EventAttackArmada, 1560576 total points; Game Time: 9:52:22

3/28/2013 7:21:23 PM (6.015)
-----------------------------------
BattleGroup of 312115 Points

FGType	SubTier	Tier	CostEach	Count	TotalCost	ReferenceOnly_StrengthEach	ReferenceOnly_TotalStrength
Fighter	Heavy	Drone	24	4	96	8	32
FighterII	Light	Cutter	32	3	96	16	48
MissileShip	Light	Cutter	32	1	32	8	8
MLRS	Medium	Cutter	48	2	96	10.11	20.21
Bomber	Medium	Cutter	48	1	48	8	8
FighterIII	Medium	Cutter	48	1	48	24	24
Cruiser	Heavy	Cutter	64	2	128	24	48
SpireGravityRipper	Heavy	Cutter	64	1	64	16	16
MLRSII	Heavy	Cutter	64	1	64	20.21	20.21
CruiserIV	Light	Corvette	128	2	256	32	64
MLRSIII	Light	Corvette	128	1	128	30.32	30.32
BomberIII	Light	Corvette	128	1	128	24	24
CoreBattleCruiser	Medium	Corvette	192	2	384	40	80
MLRSIV	Medium	Corvette	192	1	192	40.42	40.42
SpireGravityRipperIII	Medium	Corvette	192	1	192	48	48
CoreBomber	Heavy	Corvette	256	1	256	40	40
CoreMLRS	Heavy	Corvette	256	3	768	50.53	151.58
CoreSpireGravityRipper	Light	Frigate	64	3	192	80	240
AIGuardianRaider	Medium	Frigate	96	1	96	48	48
AIGuardianArtillery	Medium	Frigate	96	1	96	48	48
AIGuardianTractor	Medium	Frigate	96	1	96	48	48
AIGuardianLightningII	Heavy	Frigate	128	3	384	96	288
AIGuardianLaserII	Heavy	Frigate	128	2	256	96	192
AIGuardianBeamII	Heavy	Frigate	128	2	256	96	192
LightStarship	Heavy	Frigate	128	1	128	96	96
AIGuardianFlakII	Heavy	Frigate	128	1	128	96	96
AIGuardianArtilleryII	Heavy	Frigate	128	2	256	96	192
AIGuardianRaiderII	Heavy	Frigate	128	1	128	96	96
AIGuardianLaserIII	Light	Destroyer	256	2	512	144	288
AIGuardianSpiderIII	Light	Destroyer	256	1	256	144	144
AIGuardianSniperIII	Light	Destroyer	256	1	256	144	144
AIGuardianTractorIII	Light	Destroyer	256	1	256	144	144
AIGuardianFlakIII	Light	Destroyer	256	1	256	144	144
AIGuardianSniperV	Heavy	Destroyer	512	4	2048	240	960
AIGuardianBeamV	Heavy	Destroyer	512	2	1024	240	480
AIGuardianTractorV	Heavy	Destroyer	512	4	2048	240	960
AIGuardianFlakV	Heavy	Destroyer	512	2	1024	240	480
AIGuardianArtilleryV	Heavy	Destroyer	512	2	1024	240	480
AIGuardianSpiderV	Heavy	Destroyer	512	2	1024	240	480
FlagshipV	Light	Cruiser	1024	1	1024	480	480
RiotControlStarshipIII	Light	Cruiser	1024	1	1024	144	144
AIRaidStarshipIII	Light	Cruiser	1024	1	1024	192	192
DreadnoughtIV	Medium	Cruiser	1536	3	4608	384	1152
BeamStarship	Medium	Cruiser	1536	9	13824	320	2880
BomberStarshipIV	Medium	Cruiser	1536	6	9216	384	2304
SpirecraftSiegeTower	Medium	Cruiser	1536	3	4608	24	72
CoreStarship	Medium	Cruiser	1536	6	9216	480	2880
AISpirecraftShieldBearer	Medium	Cruiser	1536	3	4608	19.2	57.6
SpirecraftSiegeTowerII	Heavy	Cruiser	2048	4	8192	64	256
SpirecraftImplosionII	Heavy	Cruiser	2048	4	8192	64	256
DreadnoughtV	Heavy	Cruiser	2048	4	8192	480	1920
AISpirecraftShieldBearerII	Heavy	Cruiser	2048	2	4096	48	96
SpireStarshipIV	Heavy	Cruiser	2048	2	4096	768	1536
AISpirecraftShieldBearerIV	Medium	Battleship	6144	4	24576	192	768
SpirecraftImplosionIV	Medium	Battleship	6144	5	30720	384	1920
SpirecraftSiegeTowerIV	Medium	Battleship	6144	2	12288	384	768
AISpirecraftShieldBearerV	Heavy	Battleship	8192	6	49152	480	2880
AIHunterKillerIII	Medium	Mauler	98304	1	98304	8910	8910

Battlegroup actual budget spent: 311680 on 135 ships (for reference that is 17696.78 strength).

(and there are 4 other battlegroups of comparable size in this spawn)

So the first one spent 1249760 exo points and got 52916.84 strength worth of ships, or 4.23% (that number being low is fine, the upcoming comparison shows the actual problem)

But the second one spent 1558400 and got 88483.9 strength (more, actually, but let's go with that) worth of ships 5.68%.

That may not seem like a lot of difference, but that's a roughly 33% increase in total power (if the strength numbers are to be believed, which probably they shouldn't fully be) based on whether the RNG rolls one "shape" instead of the other the other due to the exponentially higher costs at higher tiers.  Of course, with the lower-overall-power option that single battlegroup is guaranteed to stick together against one objective (until it's dead, at least).

And this is comparing two very big battlegroup budgets; 311680 is still huge compared to what most folks will face.  So even the smaller one here is already suffering from a lot of the high-tier "getting a bad deal" effect. 

For reference, the first chase exo in FS spends 2000 points every 60 seconds until the shard reaches your HW.  The second one spends 4500 every 60 seconds.  The third one spends 9000 every 35 seconds.  The "during the first city construction" one spends 50000 every 2 hours until the city hub is complete (effectively means it only spends it once).  311680 is a lot more than those   Hopefully will have some of those more normal logs to look at; can get them together myself eventually at least.

[Cinth]

Those Exos (for those who are interested) were low AIP (below 25).

I'm actually waiting on Exo to finish charging in that game so I can run up the AIP and start the FS campaign.

@Keith:  I'll throw up another batch of logs at around 100? AIP.  Should have enough variation there to really get the point across